Vice-President Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, has assured stakeholders that the govern-ment will implement any recommendation for progressive urbanisation of cities and towns in Ghana.

He said in view of the rapid urbanisation of the country, there was the need to find ways to leverage the benefits and reduce poverty in the country.

The Vice President said this in a speech read on his behalf by Mr. Kwasi Opong-Fosu, Minister of State at the Presidency, at the launch of Ghana’s Urbanisation Review report in Accra yesterday.

The review of urbanisation in Ghana is meant to provide the government with additional data to evaluate the implementation of the Ghana National Urban Policy which seeks to provide a more comfortable environment for the urbanised population.

The review was jointly undertaken by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and the World Bank with support from the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Development (SECO).

Mr. Amissah-Arthur said it was pleasing that the review would take stock of urbanisation in Ghana over the last two decades and reflect on its success, useful lessons learnt and confront the challenges.

He said current observation, indicated that one in every five Ghanaians lived in an urbanised area, with the trend pointing to about 65 per cent of the population migrating to urban areas before 2030.

The Vice President said it was against this backdrop that the policy needed to improve the progressive urbanisation in Ghana, merited to be given all the oxygen to ensure development at all levels.

Alhaji Collins Dauda, the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, said there had been many projects to ensure balanced urbanisation which wer meant to contribute to the socio-economic transformation of Ghana.

He said this was so because, urbanisation had become a global phenomenon that affected societies by providing increased opportunities for economic growth.

Alhaji Danda said, that notwithstanding, the situation called for countries to formulate new policies that would direct investments in ways that would leverage the benefits of urban development.

He said the report’s content had envisaged a recommendation that provided the platform for managing and integrating metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs), through improved service delivery by providing legal and financial backing for speedy economic development of MMDA’s.

Alhaji Dauda said with the launch of the report, it was imperative for the country to deal more meaningfully with the challenge of integrated land use planning for effective urban development, and provide a strategic infrastructure transport sector for effective urban mobility.